A court fight over the nation’s most famous endangered species could foreshadow more such battles as climate change yields a hotter, drier Texas while water demand grows. Michael Berryhill reports for TCN.

Besides recovery from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, they include reversal of long-term habitat loss, nutrient over-enrichment, overuse, coastal development’s impacts and climate effects, one oceanographer told attendees. A report by Austin writer Melissa Gaskill.

The recommendations from Rice University researchers include a Houston Ship Channel floodgate, new levees, a wetlands recreation area to buffer against storm surges and a sharply limited focus for new Galveston development.

With sustainably-minded design features, the facility will provide assorted amenities near the city’s Arts District. Dallas-based journalist Barbara Kessler details the project in an article and a video report.

The Texas Forest Service estimates dry conditions have claimed up to a tenth of the trees in the state’s cities and towns so far. The finding accords with the agency’s earlier estimate of drought-killed trees outside urban areas.

A religious coalition organized its third annual National Preach-In on Global Warming. Meanwhile, another organization launched a social-media campaign to lend moral support to climate scientists barraged by hate mail.

Venomous emails poured into climate-change researcher Katharine Hayhoe’s inbox after Rush Limbaugh ridiculed her and Newt Gingrich killed the chapter she had been asked to write for his new environmental book.

The state ranking is based on new, industry-reported data that the EPA said can help communities identify emission sources, assist businesses in tracking emissions and provide information to state and local governments.

One new report: “Following a relatively wet finish to 2011, the return of warm, dry weather to the nation’s southern tier could be suggestive of an increasingly La Niña-driven atmospheric regime.”

Officials of the state agency “fully expect” more tree deaths if the drought continues. Meanwhile, a NASA study projected massive changes in ecosystems in many parts of the world as a result of manmade climate change.